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I have done my share of traveling, and in the course of my journeys I have visited some infamous places, including the Place de la Concorde, Omaha Beach, Ford’s Theater, and so on.  The Place de la Concorde has a bloody history, but today is a lovely square in the heart of Paris.  The beaches at Normandy were horrible for a day, but today are a beautiful, if solemn, landscape.  Ford’s Theater and the Petersen House probably wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for their tragic association with Lincoln. Everyone knows what those places are about.

On the south bank of the Chicago River there is a plaque describing the 1915 Eastland disaster.  More than eight hundred people drowned right in the heart of the country’s second largest city, while people in skycrapers watched out their windows.  But when I was watching a show at the Oriental Theater, which lies only a few blocks from the Chicago River, I saw no plaque commemorating the Iroquois Theater Fire.  I had never heard of it.  On this date in 1903, more than six hundred people burned to death in a terrible fire at 24 Randolf Street.  The Oriental Theater now occupies that very spot.  I suppose modern theatergoers would find it unsettling to imagine heaps of charred corpses while they tried to enjoy Wicked.  Had I known that address’s tragic history, I would certainly have searched out all the emergency exits and fire extinguishers before the house lights dimmed.

We can visit Dealey Plaza or Whitechapel, understand their histories, and still not be too disturbed.  But something about the Iroquois Theater Fire troubles me deeply.

Filed under: History, Travel on December 30th, 2009 | No Comments »

After four days and more than five hundred miles of driving, we’re back at home safe and sound.  It was great seeing family.

Filed under: Special Occasions, Travel on December 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

On two different days during our trip to Puerto Rico, we made our way to the narrow peninsula of Old San Juan.  Built in the early 1500s, the streets and sidewalks are hilariously narrow, but the architecture is extraordinarily charming.  The two and three story flats are all painted bright colors and pastels.  Pink, baby blue, lemon, green, tangerine – all with white trim, and wonderful old wood doors.

It’s basically impossible to park on the street in Old San Juan.  People do it–and do it very well–but finding an empty spot that isn’t a loading zone or reserved for a particular person or residence would require hours of searching, and some good luck to boot.  Once, when we thought we had gotten lucky, a policeman told us that the space, though unmarked, actually belonged to a bank across the street.  So, we opted instead to park in a municipal lot.  It was only a couple dollars for the whole day.

Our first stop was La Bombonera.  It’s a legendary bakery and restaurant on Calle San Francisco.  Miriam’s grandparents ate there, and La Bombonera made her parents’ wedding cake.  I’ve heard about the place for years, and was looking forward to seeing it in person.  There is a window out front with a variety of pastries and desserts on display.  Inside, people can sit at the long counter, or in booths.  Both were completely full when we arrived, but after a few minutes we took a seat.  Our waiter was a jovial old man.  He had no teeth, but that didn’t stop him from smiling.  He told us he had worked there for fifty years.  It is likely, therefore, that he served Miriam’s mother when she ate there as a small girl.  I wrote already about the mallorcas, but let me state again for the record that they are delicious beyond description.  Behind the counter is an ancient coffee maker, and a modern juicer.  The juicer required no human effort at all.  Rather, the machine grabbed an orange from a pile placed on top of it, dropped it into a hopper, sliced it in half, then crushed it.  It took a few seconds.  We ate at La Bombonera twice during our stay.

Just down the street from La Bombonera is Plaza de Armas.  It’s small for being so well known, and has a charming fountain.  Facing the square is an old municipal building where the mayor of San Juan once held a wedding reception for Miriam’s parents.  On a wall inside, the text to “En mi Viejo San Juan” is inscribed near the stairs.

Around the corner is the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.  It’s fairly simple visually.  In fact, some of the architectural details inside are illusions, merely painted on.  But the church has a rich history.  Beneath a marble sculpture along a wall in the transept lay the mortal remains of Juan Ponce de León.  It was in this cathedral that Miriam’s parents were married.

From there we walked down to the old city gate, and saw the back of La Fortaleza.  On our second day in Old San Juan we were able to tour the castle.  Along with the two forts and the old city wall, La Fortaleza is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It has been the official residence and office of governors of Puerto Rico for hundreds of years.  We had what amounted to a private tour, accompanied by an official guide and a very large plainclothes guard who always walked about twenty feet behind us.  The garden was wonderful, and the eighteenth century facade–built to make it look less like a fort, which it was built to be–is handsome, indeed.  The view from the west side is splendid, and the east side faces a long street closed to traffic.

The other UNESCO World Heritage Sites we visited were the two great forts: the massive San Felipe del Morro (which everyone calls El Morro), and the huge, but not quite as huge, San Cristobal.  El Morro lies at the tip of Old San Juan, jutting out into the water.  It was the first thing I spied from the airplane as we were about to land, and it’s impossible to miss.  Before it is an open field where people fly kites and picnic.  Through the gate is the ticket counter, of course.  The major historic sites in San Juan are managed by the National Park Service, but, like almost everything in Puerto Rico, the tickets were cheap.  The compound is almost too big to see in one visit if, like me, you have been already fatigued by walking around the city.  Plus, there are an almost unlimited number of steps and ramps.  There is an almost comical lack of safety apparatus at El Morro: no bars or railings prevent one from tumbling a hundred feet from the gun deck to the rocky shore of the Atlantic Ocean.  People are free to climb out onto the high walls, even though the wind blows hard and steady.  Elsewhere, deep troughs–probably originally intended for sanitation–are open and unguarded, so that someone (let’s say me) not paying close attention might easily stumble into one.  Up near the nineteenth century lighthouse built atop the fort, Miriam overheard a funny conversation.  A family was exploring the site, when the teenage daughter began to climb on the rampart.  “Be careful you don’t fall”, the dad said, before casually walking away to take photos.  The mom, who was with the daughter, responding to something innocuous, like the camera malfunctioning, exclaimed loudly, “oh no!”  With little hesitation, but no enthusiasm whatsoever, the father asked the mom, “what, did she fall?”

Deep under San Cristobal, a maze of tunnels lead to different areas of the fort.  In one room, a former dungeon, ancient art is still visible on the wall.  Modern–but still old–graffiti lines other tunnels.

Between El Morro and San Cristobal are two of San Juan’s most intriguing and intimidating locales: Cemetaria Maria Magdalena and La Perla.  The former is just what it sounds like; the latter is the city’s famously colorful slum.  La Perla sits on a sliver of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the old city wall.  Because of the danger, tourists are advised to steer well clear, which, given the limited access, is easy.

The Museo Pablo Casals sits on Plaza de San Jose.  It’s a modest two story building that holds images, documents, and artifacts related to the cellist.  They have, in fact, his piano and cello.  The young man working there must surely be the world’s foremost Casals authority.  All the brochures were in Spanish, so when we asked if he could just give us a little information in English, he proceeded to give us an hour-long lecture about Casals’ life and career.  This guy knew everything, and was incredibly nice, too.  Admission to the museum was something laughable, like a dollar.

San Juan is an amazing old town, and if you ever get the chance, you should go.  Just hire a taxi.

Filed under: Travel on September 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

Before it’s too late, I had better wrap up my account of our legendary Puerto Rico vacation.  What follows includes the most beautiful, sublime, fascinating, and thrilling moments of our entire voyage.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the first excursions out of San Juan that we made was to the mountainous interior of the island.  On the same day we went to the Arecibo observatory, we had also planned to visit the Parque de las Cavernas del Río Camuy. Alas, when we reached the park gate, the attendant told us that all that day’s tickets had been distributed.  We would have to return later in the week.

We left San Juan early on a Sunday morning to make the drive back to Camuy.  We reached the park and got two of the limited number of tickets that would be distributed that day.  Once inside I understood why they had to limit access.

Visitors wait at a covered area near the park entrance and wait for their number to be called.  When it’s your turn, you line up on a wooden ramp before boarding a motorized tram.  The tram follows a winding path down the mountain and stops at the bottom, where everyone steps off and the fun begins.

Through a narrow opening in the rock, a path leads into the cave.  Near the opening, a little sunlight peeks through and some vegetation grows, but deeper in it becomes dark, and nothing does.  Some electric lights prevent total blackness and inevitable injury on the sharp limestone formations that cover the floor.  After a short walk you come upon a domed chamber of overwhelming size.  I can’t give any technical details, but believe me when I say it was enormous.  The tallest building in Gainesville could easily have fit inside with room to spare.

We were warned repeatedly not to touch anything in the cave, and at a low spot near the end of the cavern we saw why.  All the water that flows down the walls of the cavern makes its way to a pool near the opening at the far end.  In that pool are micro-organisms that live only in that cave, and nowhere else on earth.

Exiting the cavern at the far end, you find yourself near the bottom of an extraordinary sinkhole.  It isn’t anything like the sinkholes you find in Florida, which are wide and shallow.  This was a pit hundreds of feet deep, with a narrow opening to the sky at the top, ringed by trees.  A waterfall splashed down to the floor, which was still some distance below us.  Some way off you can see the opening of another cave that looked to be smaller than the one you just exited.  But as you approach that cave, you realize that it is huge.  A large aircraft could have flown comfortably through the opening.  We were not allowed to get near that cave though, which is off-limits to all but a few trained spelunkers.

Back in the giant cavern, you head along a different path and soon hear the sound of rushing water.  None is visible anywhere, but the sound becomes louder until it is clear that a raging river is near.  That river is, in fact, down a deep, black crevasse.  I had a terrible vision of falling down, and being washed into the abyss.  I realized I was in Xanadu:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

I believe that that cavern may be the single most impressive natural wonder I have ever beheld.  Alas, the darkness within the cave made photography extremely difficult.  That is why I have few good pictures.

For similar reasons, I have even fewer photographs of another natural wonder we visited near the end of our trip.  At the far eastern end of the island, near the town of Fajardo, there is a small city park along the water.  It looks a lot like any waterside park in Florida, with picnic areas and a boat ramp.  But shortly before dusk each night, trucks hauling trailers loaded with kayaks line up along the sea wall, and the tourists begin donning life jackets.  The guides distribute collect shoes, distribute paddles, and assign kayaks, and as the sun sets, everyone begins rowing across the marina.  At the other side, you enter a narrow channel through the mangroves, which tower over your head and in some places form a tunnel over head.  Moving with the tide it takes about twenty minutes, and when you arrive in a large open lagoon it is already dark.

The first thing I noticed was the sky.  Except for some low fog around the mountains that circle the lagoon, it was clear, and I saw more stars than I’d seen since I was a child.  The guides turned off the glowing sticks mounted to the rear of each kayak, and then the only artificial light came from the lighthouse on the mountain.  Looking down, it was immediately apparent to me why this lagoon is so special: the water glows.  Microscopic animals living in the water emit a powerful light when disturbed.  Scooping the water in my hands, I could discern each individual point of light, though the animals themselves are much too small to see.  When I ran my arm through the water, all the individuals shined together, and it looked as though there was a bright blue light beneath the surface.

The tour guide, in his own kayak, explained how those organisms required very particular conditions to live, and how that lagoon was one of only a handful of places were they could be found.  Two similar environments could be found elsewhere in Puerto Rico, but they are not as well protected and one, in Ponce, has been virtually ruined by motorized boats and swimmers.  In Fajardo, swimming is prohibited, and only kayaks and canoes are allowed in.  Moreover, the lagoon was practically a secret: Miriam grew up in Fajardo and never heard about it while she lived there.

After about a half hour, we began paddling back to the marina.  The tide was against us, though, and it took almost three times as long to make it through the mangrove maze as before.  We were further slowed by kayakers from another tour coming in.  In the mangroves, it was almost totally dark.  We made it back to the park where we had left our car, and began driving back to San Juan.  It was hard to get that glowing lagoon out of my mind.

Near Aguadilla, at the far west end of the island, we visited where I rode a horse for the first time.  The Paso Fino is an easy-to-ride horse that originated in Puerto Rico, which was good for me, because I wasn’t sure what to expect.  My horse practically rode herself.  When I pulled back on the reins she stopped, and she never refused to move to what ever side I directed her.  I was placed at the back of a short line of horses because my horse apparently didn’t like having other horses behind her.  But Miriam was two horses ahead of me, and I wanted to catch up.  I wasn’t supposed to, but I did it anyway when our guide wasn’t looking.  We had set out from the ranch, rode across a grove of trees, over a dune, and were on a deserted beach.  The horses didn’t seem to mind trotting through the water, though it was a little scary when they got close the the edge of a dune.

After about twenty minutes or riding along the shore, we reached a rocky outcrop.  We tied the horses up to some trees, and climbed along the rocks to near the entrance of a sea cave.  The tide was too high and the surf was too rough to get any closer, but it was still fun.

The ride back was hard.  Someone at the front of the convoy made his horse run, then all the horses wanted to run.  Paso Finos a smooth riders, but the trotting still made my shoulder hurt.  Still, it was a fun and memorable experience.  I had never done more than pet a horse before, so getting to ride one along a beach was wonderful.  And getting to ride one along a remote beach, away from anything man-made, was even better.

The caverns, the bio-luminescent bay, and the horseback riding were the highlights of our vacation to Puerto Rico.

Filed under: Recreation, Travel on August 31st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

The morning of our second day in Puerto Rico took us to the mountainous interior of the island.  Heading west out of San Juan wasn’t too bad, since all the traffic in the morning comes into the city.  As you drive, the view to the south is one of rugged mountains.  The nearer ones are not so intimidating, but behind them, further inland, is a much more fearsome range.  That was where we were heading.  I’ve written already about the dangerous and unsafe mountain roads.  However awful they are to drive, they lead to interesting places.

Our first stop was the Arecibo Observatory.  Operated by Cornell University, it is one of the largest radio telescopes on Earth.  Pictures don’t do it justice.  It is really enormous.  I seem to recall the tour guide saying something about twenty-five football fields fitting inside.  Astronomers chose this specific location for a few reasons, of which the most significant were the proximity to the equator, and another being the big hole that existed naturally between the surrounding mountains.  The had to do only a little blasting to fit the reflector.  Looking at the different antennas from the rim of the reflector you cannot tell how large anything really is.  But when a man passed in a basket over head, his tiny size gave some indication.  The short film we watched in the visitor center explained that the round sub-reflector suspended high in the air is the size of a three story building.  The pointy antenna next to it is almost a hundred feet long.  Three colossal concrete towers support the cables, and those cables are embedded in massive concrete anchors.  The air at Arecibo was fresh and in the shade I felt so cool and comfortable that if I closed my eyes I could imagine that I was in the North Carolina mountains.

Our next stop that day was to be the caverns in Camuy, but we arrived to find that all the tickets had been sold for the day.  We decided to head instead to the nearby Caguana Ceremonial Ball Courts.  The Taíno lived here in pre-Hispanic times, and left petroglyphs which are on display and are fascinating.  Now, a cynical person might say, “well sure, this place is interesting, but while the Taíno were drawing on these stones, the French were building the cathedral at Riems“.  That may be so, smart guy, but as Jared Diamond points out in Guns, Germs, and Steel, geography and technology are crucial to the development of any society.  Europeans lived in the most fertile place in the world, had horses and access to almost unlimited resources.  The indigenous people of the Caribbean had to cope with frequent hurricanes, occasional earthquakes, land that was far too rugged to sustain substantial populations through agriculture.  The ball courts at Caguana are fascinating, and you could see how the stones surrounding them were brought up from the river running through the canyon below.  All around the site were enormous Ceiba trees, which were easily over a hundred feet tall, with massive trunks that dwarf a man. The park was practically deserted, and the weather was lovely.

The drive back to San Juan gave me another opportunity to experience awe and terror, as I passed gorgeous scenery, and treacherous driving conditions.  At one point, a convoy of ambulances approached from behind with lights flashing.  I moved over to allow them to pass, but they didn’t go any faster than anyone else.  I concluded that emergency vehicles in Puerto Rico must always just travel with flashing lights.  Meanwhile, when I did hear a police siren, I looked around expecting to find a patrol car.  Rather, I discovered a motorcyclist and his girlfriend, using a police siren to attract attention.

We joined our friend Maggie, who lives in Puerto Rico, for dinner at a restaurant with a cool Egyptian theme.  At the conclusion of the meal, a belly-dancing girl came out and entertained everyone.  I can see why that custom is so popular.

It was after ten o’clock when we arrived back at our hotel, and I was ultra tired.  The next day we would explore San Juan.

Filed under: History, Technology, Travel on August 30th, 2009 | No Comments »